Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust

The rainbow of nectar plants was in place. We kept repeating our rhyme for the rainbow (Richard Of York Gives Battle In Vain) (red - orange - yellow - green - blue - indigo - violet).
There were some lighthearted arguments about where in the spectrum colours like pink and mauve came, […]

Even at night it was looking exciting!
Vicky Steele had created an awesome PowerPoint presentation, which would have answered many questions for the gardeners and this was to be screened across the top of the display - but the distance was too great and it didn’t happen. We had to remove the […]

Member Desiree Osmond asked if her husband could be useful…. Could he ever!!!

Ross was fantastic, taking on lots of handyman jobs, including the next stage of the glasshouse. It was a huge task, thank heavens he came along.

All hands to the deck!
The glasshouse was being built by various bodies - and a team of volunteers repotted the plants so that we could group them in a rainbow shape.
Sticky Business offered the use of a desk (brilliant!). It was invaluable!

Meanwhile outside the marquee, other areas under canvas were blowing away.

These were retail sites which fortunately were not to be occupied until the day before the show opened. On this particular day they closed the site - it was just too dangerous. A huge totara tree got blown down that night!

Member Mike Fox arrived from the North Shore to start constructing the glasshouse.

First we had to get the colourful mural draped on the wall. Plastic groundsheets on the ground. And the glasshouse constructed.
Then all the coloured nectar plants - about 150 of them - were offloaded outside the marquee. They had to be brought into the stand, two by two.
She played her “helpless” game again, […]

This was the site inside the marquee (see following three photographs).We had taken three sites to give us an L-shape configuration.
When we got there we could drive the cars into the marquee to unload - but with all the rain and wind and rain and rain, after the first day we were asked to leave […]

This is the T-shirt designed (and modelled) by Vicky Steele, Trustee based in Christchurch.
The slogan, flowers that fly, was used to promote butterfly-gardening to the many gardeners who came by our exhibit at the Ellerslie International Flower Show, in Auckland, November 2006. And it was a huge success - the exhibit was packed with all […]

Report from The Butterfly Room at the Christchurch Festival of Flowers & Romance